River God (The Egyptian Novels)

“Salamis” tells the story of possibly the greatest naval battle of the ancient world. Involving hundreds of thousands of combatants and well over a thousand triremes – the ranking naval war engine of the time – it was the culminating battle in a twenty-year struggle between the Persian Empire and the Greeks. Against all odds – and with the help of a little treachery, a brilliant strategy and a lucky wind – the Greeks defeated the Persians, and with it began the roll-back of the Persian Empire, and the beginning of the Hellenic imperium. This epic tale is told through the individual stories of twelve characters, six form each side, each of which played a major role in the battle and its aftermath.

If the story that struck the Grand Banks off Newfoundland in October 1991 was “The Perfect Storm”, the fire that destroyed London in September 1666 was “The Perfect Fire”. A fire needs only three things: a spark to ignite it, and the fuel and oxygen to feed it. In 1666, a ten-month drought had turned London into a tinderbox. The older parts of the city were almost entirely composed of wood-frame buildings and shanties. The riverside wharves were stack with wood, coal, oil, tallow, hemp, pitch, brandy, and almost every other combustible material known to seventeenth century man. On 2 September 1666, London ignited. Over the next five days the gale blew without interruption and the resulting firestorm destroyed the whole city. “The Dreadful Judgement” tells the true, human story of the Great Fire of London through the eyes of the individuals caught up in it. It is a historical story combining modern knowledge of the physics of fire, forensics and arson investigation with the moving eye-witness accounts to produce a searing depiction of the terrible reality of the Great Fire of London and its impact on those who lived through it.

Guerrilla warfare is not just the tool of modern-day terrorists in the Middle East. Its roots stretch back to our very own revolution.

In Violent Politics, William R. Polk takes us on a concise, brilliant tour of insurgencies throughout history, beginning with America’s own struggle for independence. Continuing on, Polk explores the role of insurgency in other notable conflicts—including the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, the Irish struggle for independence, the Algerian War of National Independence, and Vietnam—eventually landing at the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the lessons of this history are needed more than ever.